Fishbuster Charters' Captain Dave Hanson reported, "Monday and Tuesday, 2/8 and 2/9, winds and seas were high, with seas up to 14 feet well offshore. My planned offshore trips for both those days canceled.

Wednesday, 2/9, Jeff and Beth Heinrich and their two young children, Maddie and Tanner, had planned to fish offshore, but seas were not nearly calm enough to do so, so the family decided to give the backwaters a try instead. Live shrimp yielded some pretty nice catches, including a 30-inch bull-red that Maddie reeled in with very little help! We photographed that fish and released it, since it was outside the slot size. The family also released a big stingray, estimated at about 35 pounds, along with one sheepshead. They also got to see a 5-inch seahorse float by so, all in all, it was a fun excursion.


Thursday, 2/11, began with a temperature of 43 degrees, but hardy anglers John Pound and his sons, Dan and Ryan, along with John’s niece, Chelsea, braved the cold to head offshore, where seas were rougher than predicted. We had a feeling they would be, given the conditions all week, but this group was up for heading out 19 miles. The bite wasn’t as strong as it was when John and his friends fished with me last week, but the group used live shrimp to catch six keeper lane snapper to 13 inches and two mangrove snapper to 15 inches, along with a 13 ½-inch sheepshead. They released a 14-inch mutton snapper.

Seas calmed and temperatures warmed on Friday, 2/12, and the snapper must have liked those conditions better because their bite was on! Kari Vilamaa, Ed Hershey, Jerry Wilson, and friend, Don, fished 22 miles west of New Pass with me, using live shrimp. The guys boxed eighteen lane snapper to 13 inches and twenty nice mangrove snapper to18 inches. They added three keeper sheepshead to 17 ½ inches, a couple of porgies, and nine grunts.



Winds and seas were forecast to pick up again by Saturday afternoon, but Steve Davis, Jim Grubbs, and Harland Durkin got a fairly calm morning of fishing before that happened. We fished 22 miles west of New Pass with live shrimp, and the snapper were still biting strong. The guys caught an 18-inch mutton snapper, eight keeper lane snapper to 17 ½ inches, and eight mangrove snapper to 15 inches. They added to the fish box four nice sheepshead to 18 inches, a half-dozen grunts, and four porgies to 14 inches."